FBI Special Agent Steele Adams has been living with
Sandoval County Sheriff Hector Gomez for six months. They are occasional bed
partners. Then one afternoon Hector gets a call for a domestic dispute that
leaves a bad feeling in his stomach. He arrives to find a man, obviously high
on meth, waving a gun around, kicking, beating and shooting at a ten-year-old
boy lying on the rockscape of the front lawn. The father goes to lock up but
when Hector tries to take the boy, his younger brother, Felipe, runs out screaming
for Matteo not to leave.

Both children are seriously abused by their cruel, drug
addicted parents and Matteo has been taking care of his brother for years.
Hector is a certified foster parent and he winds up asking for and receiving
both boys into his home. In falling in love with the boys, Hector and Steele
realize how much they love each other. Everyone is safe and happy until the
Penas’ get out on bail.

Pages or Words: 54,033 words

Categories: Contemporary, Fiction, Gay
Fiction, M/M Romance, Romance

Excerpt:

Hector
Gomez answered what he thought to be a domestic violence call. The neighbor who
called it in sounded hysterical. As the Sheriff of Sandoval County, he took too
many calls for domestic abuse. They usually involved alcohol or drugs but
something in his cop’s gut told him this was different. He pulled into the
driveway, got out of his Explorer, and saw a wild, glassy-eyed man standing on
the rock-strewn lawn, waving a gun, and beating a ten-year-old kid about his
body. The man wasn’t drunk, he was high. He had the kid on the ground, kicking
him in the ribs, groin, and legs with steel-toed boots. The gun waved
threateningly in the child’s face, which the kid tried to protect with
waif-thin arms.

The
man and the youngster appeared to be of Hispanic origin. The boy had rolled up
in a ball in the front of the house, clothed in nothing but holey blue jeans
and a thin T-shirt. Although only mid-November, New Mexico was experiencing an
early cold snap due to the enormous El Nino build-up in the Pacific. He jumped
from his Explorer and quickly shouted at the man to step away.

“I’m
going to kill you, you little faggot.” He pulled the trigger as the boy tried
to roll away. He fired the gun a second time, barely missing the boy.

Gomez’s
backup, Deputy Edwards, fired a warning shot. The man turned to Edwards and
pointed the gun. Hector shot the weapon out of his hand. The man fell next to
the boy and spit in the kid’s face. After Edwards helped him separate the man
from the boy, Hector instructed him to call a bus and the Children, Youth, and
Families Department

“Take
him to UNM Sandoval. After the medics are through with him, book him and hold
him for arraignment on attempted murder, child abuse, child endangerment,
resisting arrest, and anything else you can think of to throw at him.”

While
waiting for the second bus so the EMTs could take the kid to the hospital, he
got a blanket from his trunk and draped it around the boy whose chest heaved
with sobs.

A
woman at the storm door shouted obscenities in Spanish, prominently featuring
the word maricón, a derogatory term for gay.

Suddenly,
a small boy of about five came barreling out of the house and threw himself
onto the older boy. “What did he do to you? Are you okay? You can’t leave. You
can’t leave me alone with them.” He sobbed as he held on tight to his brother.

“I
demand that you let me take my younger son back into the house. Felipe, come.”
She grabbed the kicking and screaming child, gave him a casual slap, and
dragged him back through the door.

“Matteo,
Matteo, please. You can’t leave me here.”

The
brother, clearly fearful and still sobbing, raised his face to Hector. “What do
I do? She’ll take this out on Felipe, and he isn’t strong enough to handle her
or him.”

Hector
put his arm around the kid’s shoulder again. “Your father, such as he is, will
be in the county lockup, at least for the night. We can figure things out in
the morning. I won’t let him hurt your brother.”

“But
she will. She isn’t as strong as him, but she’ll use the belt to hurt Felipe
for coming out of the house.” The boy’s chest heaved as tears ran down his
cheeks unchecked. “Why was I so stupid? Now Felipe is going to get punished,
and it’s my fault. They weren’t supposed to be home.”

The
kid turned his head toward the little boy still crying at the door. “Felipe,
don’t get into trouble. I’ll come get you. I won’t leave you alone for
long.”

AC Katt was born in New York City’s Greenwich Village. She
remembers sitting at the fountain in Washington Square Park listening to folk
music while they passed the hat. At nine, her parents dragged her to New
Jersey where she grew up, married and raised four children and became a
voracious reader of romantic fiction. At one time she owned over two thousand
novels, until she and her husband took themselves and the cat to New Mexico for
their health and its great beauty.

Now, most of AC’s books are electronic (although she still keeps
six bookcases of hardcovers), so she never has to give away another book. AC is
a late bloomer, however, she claims to have found her niche writing LGBT
romance.

She hangs out at ACKatt.com and ackattsjournal.com; where she
keeps her blog. To get snippets of new
releases and Works in Progress subscribe to AC Katt’s Kattery by sending an
e-mail to mlhansel@gmail.com.